The Week in Biosimilar News

You know it’s been a pretty desperate week in the biosimilar blogosphere when twitter feeds relate back to articles published in January, rehashes of the US Supreme Court decision in June, or yet another estimate of the savings potentially ascribed to biosimilar use (based on erroneous assumptions). However, there were a few significant tidbits announced last week that are worth reviewing.

First, Biocon announced that the decision to approve its trastuzumab biosimilar (with partner Mylan) has been delayed by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) 3 months (until December 3, 2017). According to Biocon, this delay was required so that the FDA could “review some of the clarificatory information submitted as part of the application review process.” Clarificatory? Really? Maybe the extra time was needed to translate the application itself.

Second, a survey of 103 US gastroenterologists raised a couple of questions as to how well information about Inflectra®, the biosimilar to Remicade®, is sinking in on the practice level. According to a press release from Spherix Global Insights, cross-category prescribing may be interfering with the uptake of the biosimilar. They state, “not only is the decline [in Remicade prescriptions] attributed to the adoption of infliximab biosimilars, but use of Humira® has also significantly increased, potentially indicating that more ulcerative colitis patients are being placed on Humira to avoid insurance mandates for infliximab biosimilar use.” This limited survey found that more than one-third of gastroenterologists “agree that if a pharmacy or managed care plan advises them to use Inflectra over Remicade, that they are more likely to choose a different TNF-inhibitor altogether.” This is a weird finding, perhaps indicating nothing more than spite for the health plan’s benefit design. Clearly, if the physicians fully considered the evidence, they would be less likely to prescribe in this way. Admittedly, as notable numbers of managed care organizations have not actually mandated Inflectra use at this point in time, we would have to wait to see if this opinion is validated in actual practice.

Finally, Sanofi announced that it had received tentative approval on a follow-on biologic form of insulin lispro (the originator product was Lilly’s Humalog®). Patent issues will have to be resolved before Sanofi can receive final approval and bring this product to the market. The insulin biosimilars are not regulated under the Biologics Price Competition and Innovation Act, but rather under the Hatch–Waxman Act—the application was filed as a 505(b)2 rather than a 351(k) variety. They are transitional products, which will considered under the newer regulations after March 23, 2020. We will detail these lesser-known transitional drug categories in a future post.